


Legado

by aliasofwestgate



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Futurefic, Gen, Irrelevant Gift Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 11:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliasofwestgate/pseuds/aliasofwestgate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A girl's view of her Tio through her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legado

**Author's Note:**

> My Irrelevant Gift Exchange work for Dave. You know who you are among us Irrelevants! 
> 
> Tio: Uncle 
> 
> Abuela: Grandma   
> Abuelo: Grandpa

Leila remembers both her _Tío_ from some of her earliest memories. Both of them sharing a quiet meal while she played with the big dog they always bring with them. Her Abuelo and Abuela included.  Harold, her quiet one, helped her with her homework in kindergarten later on.  The tall one, John taught her the commands for Bear.  Though more often than not, Bear was just her friend who let her chase him and throw the ball and roll around on the floor with.  She loved Tío John’s smile when she said the words correctly most though. 

By the time she reached 5th grade she was shooting baskets with her Tío John, and finding she liked the thrill of being in motion.  Harold usually watched and cheered them both from the sidelines. The visits came less often than when she was still very little. Harold’s pained looks when he gets up from his seat tell her why.  Both her Tío have grey hair now, not just John.  Bear was a much less active dog. But he still would lick her on the face as a greeting on every visit. His big paws resting on both shoulders.  He’d have a doggy smile on his face she told him to sit in Dutch.  Leila was proud of her accent with that, because no one else in the school she attended knew even the small bit of the language she did.

Harold still helped her with her homework, but she still didn’t know what she liked best in all the things she was learning.  She had found she was good with numbers, but she also liked languages.  She asked John once if there were more languages he knew. From then on, she learned both computer languages from one Tío and human languages from the other. 

She got called to assist them once, when she was in 8th grade.  She knew well enough to keep quiet on why, by then.  They never spoke often about their work, but she knew it was important to them.  She had been taking Japanese in school and was more advanced than most of her classmates with it. She was needed to help them with a scared girl who was a little bit younger. One who’d been frightened and needed calming.  The younger girl didn’t know enough English and was curled into a corner of the library.  Leila sat beside her and began speaking quietly in Nihongo, telling her about the crib of books her Tío had made for her when they saved her over in the corner there.  Where she played with Bear and overturned more than a bit of furniture in another room, and Harold’s expression when he saw the mess.  They both giggled at that. It helped, as she went on with her stories and soon the little girl told her a name.  She stayed that day and helped Michiko through her troubles with both her Tío. They had been helping the family that Michiko was staying with, while the girls stayed protected here in The Library. By the time Harold and John returned, they were playing a video game she’d installed on one of the other terminals Harold had set up years ago for her.  She had to mod it a little herself to change the language for them, so Michiko could understand.  Bear was a pile of fur under their feet. Grey and old, but no less loyal.  Afterwards, she took the girl back and promised to keep in touch.  She had a new friend, and she’d done something no one else could do for them. 

She was only called a few more times over the years, and she missed Bear’s presence.  He’d passed on before she’d graduated High School and gone on to college.  Her Tío were there for graduation from High School, but she knew their work was never done.  There were newer members of the family they had related to their work.  Younger, because John was spry but he was also starting to learn his limits.  She knew she wasn’t the only one of their former ‘clients’ that helped out.  They were a small family, all of them. Only a few that stayed in touch with the two men who she knew as her Tío. She was privileged in that she knew them from before she had memories.   Darren had told his story to her once. They even giggled over the fact that his first successful comic had been a barely veiled account of his own time as a client.  She recognized John’s blue eyes and haunted expression when she’d read the short series the first time.  They were the children of the family, one made mostly of adults but still the ones who would carry things on in the future.   What that future held, and whoever took over the work? She didn’t know.  But she was their legacy, as was Darren. Those who knew them and those that helped, all around Manhattan and even outside of it. 


End file.
